The Smithsonian InstitutionRegents of the University of Michigan

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian Paintings in the Bodleian Library by B. W. RobinsonReview by: Oleg GrabarArs Orientalis, Vol. 4 (1961), pp. 418-419Published by: Freer Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian Institution and Department of the Historyof Art, University of MichiganStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4629164 .

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4I8 BOOK REVIEWS

turies before, only the coastal route was main- tained.3

These are only some of the points which are raised by this highly readable book with a large number of illustrations (to which un- fortunately there are no references in the text). While not directed to the Islamicist, it is a book which opens important avenues for further work, since without a good under- standing of the Near East before Islam, it is not possible to understand the new Muslim world.

OLEG GRABAR

a Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian Paint- ings in the Bodleian Library. By B. W. Robinson. Oxford, I958. xxv+219 pp., 40 pls. and color frontispiece.

This book cannot be considered merely as a catalogue of the 1,304 miniatures in the Bodleian Library. The Oxford collection has been used as a means to introduce to the scholarly world several hundred manuscripts from private and public collections, most of which are still unpublished. At the same time, Mr. Robinson's book is not really a history of Persian painting from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Although each chapter is preceded by a few paragraphs on the develop- ment and characteristics of the style of the time, no attempt has been made to give a com- plete picture of the development of miniatures in Iran. This book is a tool and an invitation. It is a tool, since it will serve for the later centuries the function fulfilled by Holter's

3 Some of the sites which Professor Glueck had considered to be Nabataean have been called Umayyad by J. Sauvaget, Remarques sur les monuments Omey- yades, Journal Asiatique, vol. 23I ( I939), p. 45ff. It seems to me that they can very well be both and that we are dealing with a continuous settled civilization started by the Nabataeans and continued through the Umayyad period. Specific excavations should solve the problem.

checklist for the period until I350 (together with the supplement in Ars Islamica, vol. 7). And it is an invitation to publish not only manuscripts from other collections, but also studies which would cut across collections, since, thanks to Mr. Robinson, we have now a repertory of most known manuscripts.

The book is divided chronologically and by styles within each period. Each style and each period begins with a general introduction, continues with a list and description of each Bodleian miniature, and ends with a list of comparative material, at times accompanied by new and important comments. The book ends with 6 i illustrations and a splendid series of indices. The most important commentaries are those dealing with the early Shiraz schools and with the Turkman school, in which Mr. Robinson makes new and different attribu- tions. For the later periods, in which the major schools are better known, the comments are briefer.

It is likely that the comparative material could easily be enlarged by the addition of other manuscripts and especially single leaves preserved in various albums, which have been consciously avoided by the author. Yet one can hardly escape the feeling that further efforts of scholarship should be directed not so much to finding and dating new manuscripts, but to analyzing those which are already known and, in particular, separating within the long lists provided by the author those manu- scripts whose illustrations are truly great and important works of art from school pieces. It is in the publication of illustrations of the same texts and in the improvement of our knowledge of each period through systematic studies of contemporary manuscripts that Mr. Robin- son's thorough work will find its deserved fruition.

The book is clearly printed, quite free of errors, and well illustrated. One small correc- tion should be made. The Zafar-ndmeh which

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BOOK REVIEWS 419

was formerly in the Garrett collection is not in the Princeton Library with most of the collec- tion, but at the Johns Hopkins Library ir! Baltimore.

OLEG GRABAR

Le Minaret de Djam. Par A. Maricq et G. Wiet. Memoires de la Delegation Arche- ologique Franqaise en Afghanistan, t. XVI. Paris, I959. 9I pp., i6 pls., 3 maps. The discovery, in August i95i, by M. A.

Maricq, of the minaret at Jam was not only sensational because of its importance, but also heartening in showing how much can still be discovered on the archaeologically rich surface of the Near East. One must also congratulate the discoverer as well as Professor Wiet and the Delegation Archeologique Francaise en Afghanistan for the speed with which a full publication followed the discovery.

The first chapter, by A. Maricq, describes the discovery of the minaret in the valley of the Heri-riud. The second chapter, by G. Wiet, deals briefly with the decoration. In the third chapter Professor Wiet publishes the inscrip- tions, the historical ones as well as the whole of the nineteenth siurah of the Koran, whose occurrence has not yet been fully explained, but which must be related to some specific event surrounding the building of the minaret. This inscription alone would justify the hy- pothesis made elsewhere in the volume (for in- stance, p. 65) that the function of this struc- ture was much wider than that of simply calling people to prayer. The fourth chapter, also by Professor Wiet, bears the modest title of "Commentaire Historique." It is in reality a full history of the Ghorid dynasty centered on the life and time of Ghiyath al-Din abiul Fath Muhammad (ruled from I I53 to I 203), the builder of the minaret. The final two chapters by A. Maricq identify the site as Firiizk6h, the new Ghorid capital, and compare the minaret

to the well-known Qutb-minar of Delhi, to which it bears close resemblance. Four ap- pendices on related topographical and histori- cal problems, an index, and excellent plates and maps complete the volume.

Thus a new site has been discovered and the historical circumstances of its building have been described. It remains now for Islamic archaeologists to undertake a full excavation of the site and to bring to light one of the many temporary capitals of mediaeval dynasts, whose succession serves to illustrate the com- plex history of the time. In addition, with Jim after Lashkari Bazar, Afghanistan appears as one of the most promising lands for further excavation.

OLEG GRABAR

Aus der Welt der islamischen Kunst. Fest- schrift fur Ernst Kiihnel zum 75. Geburts- tag. Herausgegeben von Richard Etting- hausen. Berlin, I959. 404 pp.

In this handsomely printed volume 33 schol- ars from eight countries, have paid their homage to one of the doyens of the study of Islamic art and archaeology. All aspects of this vast field of learning have been examined, but more emphasis has been given to painting, the so-called minor arts, and iconographical problems than to architecture (four articles, of which only two deal truly with architec- ture). Many more contributions have dealt with the Islamic Orient than with the Islamic West (two articles only), thereby not fully reflecting the remarkable catholicity of the master himself, whose bibliography of 382 items covers quite fully in time and in space the whole of the Islamic world, an achievement which cannot but instill in the reader a sense of humility as well as of gratitude.

It is, of course, impossible to review in detail all the contributions to this volume, which vary in size as well as in significance.

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